2 Jewish Emancipation Reflection Points For centuries, Jews embraced the Jewish way and remained dedicated to ’ th fulfilling God s law. However, all this changed in the 18 century with the liberation of Jewry from the constrictions and disabilities of previous centuries. As I noted in the section on Jewish emancipation in Judaism Today, Christian polemicists such as Wilhelm Christian Dohm argued that Jews posed no threat to their non-Jewish neighbours and should integrate into Western society. At the end of the eighteenth century, the French National Assembly proclaimed that all human beings are born and remain free and equal. In the first decade of the nineteenth century, the Napoleonic Code of Civil Law established the right of all inhabitants, including Jews, to follow any trade. In 1806 an Assembly of Jewish notables declared that there is no conflict between Jewish law and French civil law. The next year, a Grand Sanhedrin composed of rabbis and laymen confirmed the views of the Assembly. The French Revolution of 1848 which led to revolts elsewhere in Europe forced rulers to grant concessions to their Jewish inhabitants, and eventually Jewish emancipation spread throughout Europe and beyond. Considering these historical developments, you should ask yourself whether Jewish emancipation was a blessing or a curse. In the past, strictly-Orthodox Jewish leaders were concerned about the repercussions of such a change in Jewish existence. In their view the end to the ghettoization of Jewry would undermine the faith. The great Hasidic rabbi, Shneur Zalman, for example, stood up in the synagogue on Rosh Hashanah to offer a prayer to God asking for help for the leader whose victory would be best for Jewry. He prayed for ‘ the Czar to defeat Napoleon. Later he explained: Should Napoleon win, the wealth of Jews will be increased and their position will be raised. At the same time their hearts will be estranged from our Heavenly Father. However, should Czar Alexander win, Jewish hearts will draw nearer to our heavenly Father, though the poverty of Israel may become greater and his position ’ lower. What do you think of such a view? Has Jewish life flourished as a consequence of the emancipation of Jewry, or has this led to the disintegration of Judaism as a living faith? Action Points ‘ ’ Go to Google. Type in Jewish emancipation . Look for websites dealing with this subject. Stay in Google. Click on images. Look for illustrations of leaders of the Enlightenment such as Wilhelm Christian Dohm as well as Moses Mendelssohn. Go to Amazon. Look for books dealing with the Jewish Enlightenment. 3 Jewish Life in Eastern Europe Reflection Points As we have seen, Jewish life underwent a major revolution in Western Europe. With the advent of the Enlightenment, Jews were freed from oppressive restrictions of the past. In Eastern Europe, however, Jews continued to suffer numerous indignities. In the nineteenth century, the Jewish community continued to endure prejudice and persecution. The Pale of Settlement was in fact a gigantic ghetto which restricted Jewish movement and ownership. In Russia the conscription of Jewish boys was designed to sever their links to Judaism and foster assimilation and integration. Kehillot (Jewish communities) were abolished and Jews were placed under the authority of the state. In the middle of the century the government sought to ’ ’ forbid Jewish dress, men s side-curls and the ritual shaving of women s hair. Jews were to be categorized along economic lines. Yet, despite such policies, a number of Jews escaped from the restrictions of Jewish life and settled in St Petersburg and Moscow. Some entered the legal professions and participated in local councils. Eventually Jews began to take an active part in the professions and Russian economic life. Despite such advances, anti-Semitic attitudes continued to prevail. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, counter-emancipatory tendencies were expressed by a number of Russian writers. Thus in the 1860s the Slavonic ‘ theoretician Ivan Aksakow declared: The real question is not emancipation of the Jews, but the liberation of the Russians of the south-west from the Jewish ’ yoke. For many Russian Jews, including the intelligentsia, the Jewish presence was perceived as troublesome and sinister. The writer Feodor Dostoevsky, for example, in the summer of 1879 while undergoing his yearly cure for emphysema in Bad Ems, complained about the number of Jews he saw in a letter to the procurator of the Holy Synod: Everything is completely ’ foreign. It s unbearable. It is supposed to last five weeks. And note this. Literally half are Yids. On my way through Berlin I also noticed that Germany, ’ or at least Berlin, has become Judaized. Responding to this observation, the procurator asserted that the Jews had ‘ ’ become a dangerous force in Russia as well. What you write about the Yids , ‘ he stated, is perfectly correct. They have invaded everything ...They are at the root of the Social Democratic movement and tsaricide. They control the press and the stock market. They reduce the masses to financial slavery. They formulate the principles of contemporary science, which tends to dissociate itself from Christianity ... And nobody dares say that here the Jews ’ control everything . Action Points Does this seem familiar? Such attitudes were of course held by members of the Nazi party in the early part of the next century. And we know where such hostility led. Surveying the history of anti-Semitism through the ages, you should ask yourself why the Jews have been so hated. This is a large subject, and there are many books written about the history and nature of Jew-hatred. Here are some books you could look at: o Hannah Arendt, Antisemitism, New York, 1968 o Michael Curtis (ed.), Antisemitism in the Contemporary World, Boulder, 1986 o T. Davies (ed.), Antisemitism and the Foundations of Christianity, New York, 1979 o Shmuel Ettinger, Antisemitism in the Modern Age, Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv, 1978 o Roberto Finzi, Anti-Semitism, Gloucestershire, 1999 o Edward H. Flannery, The Anguish of the Jews, New York, 1985 o John Gager, The Origins of Antisemitism, Oxford, 1985 o Paul E. Grosser, Anti-Semitism, Causes and Effects, New York, 1983 o Jules Isaac, The Teaching of Contempt: Christian Roots of Anti- Semitism, New York, 1964 o Gavin Langmuir, Toward a Definition of Antisemitism, Berkely, 1990 o Franklin Littell, Crucifixion of the Jews, New York, 1975 o Vamberto Morais, A Short History of Anti-Semitism, New York, 1976 o James Parkes, Antisemitism, London, 1963 o Leon Poliakov, The History of Anti-Semitism, Vol. 1, London, 1974, vol. 2, London, 1974, vol. 3, London, 1975, vol. 4, Oxford, 1985 o W.D. and H. Rubenstein, Philosemitism, London, 1999 o Joseph Telushkin and Dennis Prager, Why the Jews: The Reason for Antisemitism, New York, 1983 o Robert Wistrich, Antisemitism, London, 1981 4 The Jewish Enlightenment Reflection Points As we have noted, Moses Mendelssohn spearheaded the Jewish Enlightenment. After encountering Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, he published a series of theological studies. Later when challenged to justify his adherence to the Jewish faith, he wrote Jerusalem in which he argued that religious coercion is illegitimate. Judaism, he argued, is different from other religions in that it contains a revealed code. The Jewish people did not hear God proclaim that he is an eternal, necessary and omniscient being who rewards and punishes humanity. Rather, the mitzvot (commandments) were revealed to his chosen people: The voice that was heard at Sinai on that great day did not ‘ proclaim: I am the eternal, your God, the necessary autonomous being, omnipotent and omniscient, who rewards men ’ in a future life according to their deeds. This is the universal religion of mankind, not Judaism, and this kind — of universal religion without which man can become neither virtuous nor happy was not and, in fact, could not have been revealed at Sinai. For who could have needed the sound of thunder and the blast of trumpets to become convinced of the validity of these eternal verities. ‘ Rather at Mount Sinai the Jewish people heard the historic truth, I am the ’ — Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt a statement introducing the legal code which is binding on the Jewish nation. Jews, he went on, are not at liberty to divorce themselves from their cultural connections with the countries where they dwell. Rather, they must engage in civic life while remaining faithful to their religious heritage: Adopt the mores and constitution of the country in which you find yourself, but be steadfast in upholding the religion of your fathers, too. Bear both burdens as well as you can. True, on the one hand, people make it difficult for you to bear the burden of civil life because of the religion to which you remain faithful; and, on the other hand, the climate of our time makes the observance of your religious laws in some respects more burdensome than it need be. Preserve nevertheless; stand fast in the place which Providence has assigned everything which may happen, as you were told to do by your Lawgiver long ago. ’ Mendelssohn s vision of Jewish emancipation influenced a number of followers, the maskilim, who sought to integrate the community into the ’ mainsteam of European life. Yet, despite Mendelssohn s determination to remain faithful to tradition, his children abandoned their Jewish heritage and converted to Christianity. The great musician Felix Mendelssohn who ‘ ’ ‘ composed The Christmas Oratorio and the hymn Hark the Herald Angels ’ Sing was his grandson. Surveying the effects of the Enlightenment, you should consider whether the emancipation of Jews has in fact severed Jewry from its religious moorings.